Moonlight

He feigned a fine indifference

To be so prodigal of light,

Knowing his piteous twisted things

Would lose the crooked marks of spite

When only moonbeams lit the dusk

And made his wicked world seem right.

But we forget so soon the shame,

Conceiving sweetness if we can,

Heaven the citadel itself

Illumined on the lunar plan;

And I the chief of sinners, I

The middlemost Victorian!

Now I shall ride the misty lake

With my own love, and speak so low

That not a fishy thing shall hear

The secrets passing to and fro

Amid the moonlight poetries.

O moonshine, how unman us so?